Raymond Shorten: “A rapist taxi driver wanted to have sex with me – he was looking for a drunk girl”

The woman who appeared as a witness in the trial of the 50-year-old rapist was described in court as one of three women who had consensual sex with the perpetrator in his taxi.

Last night, however, she told the Sunday World: “I wouldn’t have done that at all if I was sober. I don’t find him attractive – he’s twice my age.”

“Afterwards I was very ashamed and depressed that I had even agreed to it in that state.

“God knows who else he did this to.”

The woman tells her story today as we reveal that sex offender Shorten was also convicted in connection with another sexual assault earlier this year in which he The verdict is still pending.

For legal reasons, we cannot disclose any further details about this crime.

“I don’t want my name in the newspaper because I didn’t pursue my case,” the woman told the Sunday World this week.

“I gave my statement (to the Gardaí) two years ago and was called as a witness in the case of the other two women.”

When asked what happened in her case, she said: “I was thrown out of a nightclub. Then Raymond came towards me in a taxi.”

“My friends had my money and I wasn’t allowed to go back to the club to collect it.

“I told him I didn’t have any money for the taxi, but he said it was OK – he wouldn’t let a young girl walk home alone in that condition.

“It was 2021, I was 20 at the time. I was very, very drunk,” the woman recalls.

“I literally fell while walking down the street and couldn’t reach my family to call me a taxi. I was literally trapped.”

The woman said Shorten asked her if she would stay outside after he drove off.

“I spontaneously said ‘yes’,” she remembers. “Then we drove somewhere – to a small, dark place.

“I didn’t really know where we were going. And he got in the back of the taxi.

“I think he asked me if I wanted to have sex and I said yes. But I wouldn’t have done it sober.”

“After that I felt very uncomfortable. And he texted me.

“After that he took me with him again and asked me again if I would stay outside.

“He wouldn’t let me pay him or anything, so I thought he wanted other things from me again.

“But I said no. Then I dismissed the whole thing and ignored him from then on.”

The woman said she heard Raymond Shorten’s name the next time the gardaí contacted her.

Investigators said messages Shorten had sent to her number were retrieved from his phone.

“When the Gardaí questioned me, they explained to me that under the law sex cannot be consensual if someone is in a vulnerable state,” she continued.

“I was 20 at the time, I don’t know exactly how much I drank.

“But I had drunk a lot and that’s why I was thrown out of the nightclub – because I was too drunk,” said the young woman.

“But I think he was driving around that night looking for a drunk girl to pick up.

“I didn’t think anything of it at the time. But now that everything has happened, I believe that was his intention.”

“If I had been sober, I wouldn’t have touched him. He’s 50 and I’m only 23. You know what I mean.”

When asked to describe Shorten, the woman said: “He seemed very normal, very talkative.”

“He didn’t text for a while, but then he started asking if I was out. I never responded.

“I think, I’m not 100 per cent sure, but I think it was a month or two after that when the Gardaí contacted me and asked how I knew him.”

The woman said she was shocked to learn that Shorten was being investigated for raping young women in the back seat of his taxi.

“When all this happened, I just brushed it off and pretended none of this ever happened,” she said.

“I was very ashamed and depressed that I had even agreed to it in the condition I was in.

“I wouldn’t have done it at all if I was sober. I don’t find him attractive – he’s twice my age.”

“And when I was questioned by the Garda it was a huge strain on me – I had to give up my job for three months and go to counselling.

“And I couldn’t even go to counseling because my counselor was a man and I felt really uncomfortable around him.”

The woman said this month’s trial left her in fresh shock when she learned that Shorten had raped not one but two women.

She said she was called as a witness during the trial to confirm the statement she made to the Garda two years ago.

“I was in a terrible state in the courtroom,” she said.

“I just couldn’t stop crying. I felt some relief today after he was found.

“But I think I need to go back to counseling now because I’ve never talked about it. I’ve never told my family or anything.

“I thought he only did it to a girl because I tried not to read about it online.

“But when I saw two other girls in the courtroom, I had to go outside and scream and cry while I spoke to the Garda outside.

“I couldn’t believe it… and then during the trial I found out that there were two other girls like me with whom he also had sex in the taxi.

“It’s just disgusting and I think there are probably other girls out there who have kept quiet about it.

“I’m glad now that I came forward and spoke to the police if it helped the other girls involved. He is 100% a sex offender and I hope he rots in his cell.

“It is a relief that he was found guilty because he denied it and said it was all consensual.

“What he did is disgusting. He was looking for a drunk girl that night… that’s how I feel now.”

On Friday, Shorten was found guilty by a jury at the Central Criminal Court of two counts of rape and one count of anal rape.

Shorten had pleaded not guilty to the rape and anal rape of a 19-year-old woman on June 25, 2022, and the rape of another woman, then 20, several months later on August 9.

The prosecution argued that both young women ended up in a taxi after a sociable night in Dublin city centre and were raped by Shorten.

Judge Paul McDermott remanded Shorten in custody for sentencing on July 1 and ordered the preparation of victim statements.